Trump is currently announcing his replacement pick for Labor Secretary, and it got me wondering; what happens if the President never actually gets someone confirmed for a Cabinet post? Say he keeps putting up candidates who get voted down, or maybe he stops proposing candidates at all – is the latter legal? Is the former possible?
What happens if, hypothetically, four years go by like that?
You get to see whether there’s a job there to be done, or not.
Well, yeah, I guess.
Thing is, I had a debate in mind – except, if I have the facts right, I don’t really see how it’s a question at all; unless I’m wrong on the facts, except I’m not quite sure how I could be. But I feel like I must be missing something obvious.
The way I see it, there really is no job to be done. I mean, while we’ve been waiting for Trump to get nominees approved, each Department motored along just fine; there’s an entire hierarchy in place, of folks who are just doing their jobs (a) under Trump, and (b) while waiting for a political appointee, right?
And if, as per my hypothetical, one of those Departments never gets a Secretary, it seems to me that everybody would – well, shrug, right? I mean, the same people would keep doing their jobs there, and whoever happens to be the highest-placed person there would keep answering to the President like at present, right?
So what I don’t get is, why is there all this fuss about confirming nominees at all?
Sure, if you roll over and give him whoever he wants, then someone you disapprove of will call the shots at that Department and serve at the pleasure of the President; but if you block his choices, then, uh, he is calling the shots at that Department, and serving at the pleasure of, uh, himself? So what the hell is the point? It’s a job that, for nine out of ten Departments, seems to boil down to “yeah, you’re just going to be his go-between; if you don’t start doing the job, he’ll simply tell your underling what to do instead of relaying it through you; we know that, because that’s what’s happening now.”
The government is NOT doing fine with so many senior positions vacant. It may not have affected you in any way, but the gears of government are currently FUBAR.
Well, then we’re back to my original question: what does happen if a Cabinet post simply goes unfilled, either because Congress keeps rejecting nominees or – if he can legally do so – the President just stops bothering to come up with new nominees?
I was under the impression that whoever would be serving under the Secretary pretty much would do – and pretty much just does – an “in lieu of” job. Am I wrong?
It really depends.
I have a friend in Commerce. One day they’re allowed to go to a trade show of Asian importers, the next day they’re not, and so forth with no clear instructions. They’re twiddling their thumbs. Part of their purpose is to help small American businesses navigate Asian countries’ rules, and they’ve had to answer a lot of calls “I dunno.”
I have another friend in Agriculture, in a nearly uncontroversial branch. He’s doing his job just fine, although the hiring freeze will start being a pain soon.
Missed the editing window, thought I’d elaborate a bit.
When there’s no political appointee, an Acting administrator (career bureaucrat from the department) is always appointed temporarily. If the changes in policy are minor or nonexistent, this can stand indefinitely with no issues - when you get to sub-agencies, these occasionally do last for years with nobody sweating. But it’s not that the job is unfilled, it’s just filled by a career civil servant rather than a political appointee.
However, if there are policy changes, it’s the political appointee’s job to set the clear priorities. Does a particular minor task (going to a meeting) fit in with the President’s objectives? It’s the appointee’s job to make that decision, so that if the President doesn’t agree, the appointee can say “my bad - I approved it - don’t blame the lowly worker for attending the meeting”. But without that, the lowly workers get quite scared of doing anything, and the “landing teams” (temporary political teams from the president) often speak with conflicting voices and shift with the winds. The bigger the policy shift, the worse the problem - and these are the biggest policy shifts in at least 20 years, in some of these departments.
The problem with the notion that Donald will just “do it all himself” is that pretty much all of these jobs are full-time, detail-oriented jobs. There’s simply no way one person, even if they were actually competent, could do a proper job in more that one such position. The level of detail needed to implement a new vision for a department, and to deal with the inevitable problems that arise, requires someone who is willing to ride herd on it on a daily basis.
And Trump isn’t even keeping up with just the job of being President. Any attempt on his part to manage a department in place of a proper appointee will be even more half-assed than what we’re already seeing. Like, quarter- or eighth-assed, maybe even worse!
To my recollection, the Vacancies Act applies a clock to those officials who may operate in an acting capacity – I think you get something like five months to serve as an acting official in a presidentially nominated, Senate confirmed position. I believe the clock is reset if the Senate rejects a nomination, so I think someone in your scenario can remain acting for quite some time.
Fair enough, but I’d figured it was more like this: whoever is running things at this or that Department right now, basically doing the Secretary’s job in the absence of an actual Secretary, is effectively (a) doing a full-time, detail-oriented job and (b) answering to the President – and if and when the President appoints a Secretary, that Secretary will (a) do a full-time, detail-oriented job and (b) answer to the President.
And I figured that the President, in either case, is going to spend just as much or as little time telling the highest-placed person at that Department what to do; I figured that he’s going to do that if it’s an actual Secretary, or if it’s someone who’s just doing that job in lieu of an actual Secretary.
I mean, I’m mulling what squidfood said, but I’m still not sure it saves the President any time in either case – and I wasn’t really expecting him to do any more or less detail-type work in either case, at that. I was just thinking, he tells his Secretary what his priorities are, at whatever level of detail or effort is appropriate – and, in the absence of an actual Secretary, he just does the same thing.
But, as a general rule, the acting secretary will avoid having to make big decisions until a real person is confirmed for the job. Sure, they have to make immediate decisions on some big things, but as a rule, stuff piles up.
Well, see, imagine the “real person” secretary – the kind who serves at the pleasure of the President – making a big decision that Trump would in fact disapprove of.
As in, cue the cobra-esque “you’re fired” gesture.
I’m figuring a secretary Doesn’t Typically Do That, right? I figured that a secretary routinely meets with the boss, and briefs him on stuff, and gets a good idea of what the guy has in mind – and I figured that anyone acting in place of that secretary would simply take as much or as little time to do exactly the same thing, is all.
I used to attend industry conventions that were important enough to get cabinet secretaries or trade representatives there as speakers. Inevitably there would be meetings with executives and reporters where detailed questions about negotiations, regulations, program funding, etc. would be asked.
The answers to questions like that always go back to policies set from above. An acting Secretary of Commerce is not going to be entrusted with the decision to recommend the U.S. grant most favored nation status to Kazakhstan, even when energy companies are waiting impatiently to sign big deals that give them access to Kazakhstan’s oil and gas reserves.
Ok, if you think this is true, go back and find major policy decisions made by acting cabinet secretaries.
I suggest you start with Yates, Sally.
But that’s only half of the equation; it’s just as easy for me to say, go back and find major policy decisions by actual cabinet secretaries. This may just be my ignorance showing, but I don’t recall ever hearing about major decisions made by, you know, a Secretary of Agriculture, or a Secretary of Education. Is that a thing that happens? Was there, during the Obama administration, a major decision announced by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs? That’s not sarcasm; I genuinely have no idea.
It’s also worth thinking in the other direction, of information flow back to the president. While the civil service has a strong tradition of neutrality and professionalism, they have professional opinions that may differ from political calculations. If the president wants to do something, the professional civil service might detail three options to get there, with various levels of political risk. Should it be up to the servant to make the political call on which one to recommend, or should there be a dedicated politician, with more time than the president, to translate the choices into political costs? The president needs someone with time to look at the details, but also to play the president’s political game, and tell the president which option to champion to achieve objectives.
That said, an awful lot of this is “tradition”, which can be changed, but trying to change it overnight would be… courageous.
Of course, the slowly-raise-one-eyebrow part is that Donald Trump has assembled a team of specialist politicians ranging from Ben Carson to Betsy DeVos – while tapping Rick Perry to head the department he sure would’ve mentioned wanting to do away with if only he’d been able to remember it, but, y’know, that’s not his strong suit.
Oh, that reminds me - accountability! Let’s say a department decides to, oh, illegally ignore FOIAs pertaining to climate change data. If all the political fallout fell to the president, he might say “hey, this doesn’t rise to impeachment, I can take the heat.” Spreading the responsibility to congressionally-approved intermediaries means (in theory!), there’s someone who’s butt is on the line for specific departmental political calls, and (in theory!) there’s someone to answer to Congress for those specific issues, and so (in theory!) they’ll make sure they’re acting within some kind of ethical/legal constraints. Since the president is going to need to delegate political details anyway, better to delegate to someone who’s had a publicly accountable hearing than, say, some kind of unaccountable shadow-Bannon.
I was under the impression that most government agencies can go years without political appointees purely on bureaucratic momentum. You won’t get a lot of policy pushed forward but aside from Treasury, State, Defense, and Justice, the acting secretary (usually a senior career bureaucrat) can keep things moving along just fine for at least a year or two.
The wheels don’t fall off after a few weeks. I mean it hasn’t even been a month.